By Inderjit Singh
In the wake of rapidly growing air traffic and the corresponding transformational changes warranted to cope up, there is a dire need to realign aviation says Inderjit Singh, an ICAO Aviation Advisor, and the former CEO of IGI airport, New Delhi.
Aviation is an organic business growth venture and as such is ever-evolving while keeping pace with the changing realities. The significant virtue of the industry is its resilience and the adaptability to transformational changes. The cynics had branded aviation as doomed and a spent force after 9/11 and wondered if it would ever revive. However, it had not only recovered to its past glory but surpassed the traffic volumes within a gap of four years and continued growing at an exponential proportion until the pandemic struck.
The air transport industry in its recovery mode in the last three years, since the pandemic has been somewhat unstable, yet the growth trajectory has been on-track to return to its full profitability during the current year. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) have indicated a global profit of $4.6bn on revenues of $779bn in 2023. Though it reflects a slim operating margin for airlines of 0.4% and a per passenger profit of $1.1; it is indicative of a progressive development.
The global industry collectively lost $140bn in 2020, $42bn in 2021, and $6.9bn in 2022. A return to profitability in 2024 would represent a significant achievement considering the devastating impact of the pandemic. At the end of 2021, the industry was not expected to return to profitability until the end of 2025 or even more.
Crystal Gazing
What will 2024 and beyond hold for commercial aviation? The global passenger traffic prior to the pandemic in 2029 was 9.2bn which is likely to be achieved by the mid-2024. The baseline projections for global passenger traffic indicate that the world airports and airlines are expected to handle 23.9 bn passengers by 2050; 243% of the then projected world population of 9.8bn. Aviation needs to grapple with the new realities and consequently devise strategies to meet with this massive mandate. Thus, the need to realign aviation and upgrade it to meet with the ground realities.
The most significant strategic area in the development of aviation, other than the streamlining of the air navigation systems, manufacturing, acquisition, and induction of the right mix of aircraft types, and integration of advanced technologies etc. is what meets everyone’s eye – the airport passenger processing buildings.
Back to Basics
There are certain basic nuances in the development of airport passenger processing buildings that one must realize. Terminals at airports are a “Misnomer” is what Buckminster Fuller – the American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, philosopher, and the inventor of Lattice Shell structures – the Geodesic Domes, taught while giving us lessons on planning, design, and operations of airports. We believed in it as he made us realize the premise that the journey does not end at an airport. The journey ends up or terminates at the destination which is the home or the hotel. The terminal building or for that matter the airport, at best is a transit stop-over where we interchange one mode of transport to another i.e. land mode to air mode and vice versa. Realization must dawn that an airport is a place where we go to go away elsewhere. Hence the need to have a clear, smooth, and unobstructed way to transit through it painlessly is paramount; the choice to step aside at will, for entertainment and shopping at duty-free notwithstanding.
The first significant parameter we must consider is that the consumer, the air passenger, is the raison d’être, is the sole reason for the existence of all of us without exception, who work in the air transport industry. The passenger is our livelihood, our income, our profit, our future, and as such, is not an inconvenience. As soon as everybody both high and low in the world of air transport recognizes this fact, the sooner the systems will improve.
Travel horrors highlighted by the plight of Tom Hanks in the Hollywood movie, ‘The Terminal’ were an everyday reality for passengers at many airports. In the film, Hanks plays a visitor to New York City from Eastern Europe, whose homeland erupts in a fiery coup while he is in the air en route to America. Stranded at JFK International Airport with a passport from ‘nowhere,’ he is unauthorized to enter the US and has to spend days and nights miserably in the terminal’s international transit lounge until the war at home is over. While the character, and his experiences is fictional, was it a case of real-life imitating reel-life or vice versa? Airports have since evolved and thankfully they have come a long way.
Not a mere ‘pax’
An air traveller often referred to as ‘pax’ (a horrible word) in airline and airport jargon is not a unit to be regarded as being of a basic standard, usually diminutive in size, somewhat lacking in both intelligence and general ability to find his way about and all too frequently an individual to be treated with indifference, and with his special desires all too often ignored, or at best treated with reluctance. If this seems to be too harsh a judgment, I suggest that all those of us who are either airline or airport employees, benefiting perhaps from that very special treatment, should put ourselves in the position of a mere ‘pax’ at a foreign airport late at night, tired, bewildered and even ill, to get just some flavour of what millions of air travellers must put up with. You will then find that my judgment is not so harsh, after all.
It is my strong conviction that the passenger is the First-Foremost-Frontier. The need of the day is not the grandiose statement of architectural styles vying with one another for awards but safe, functional, flexible, spacious, convenient, comfortable, aesthetically pleasant, efficient and above all ‘environment & passenger-friendly’ terminal buildings that reduce a traveller’s over-all ‘irritation factor.’ An intelligent level of information, a minimum of imposed controls, smooth and unobstructed continuous flow, adequate consumer-related concessionaires, fully manned check-in, customs and immigration desks, adaptability to ever-changing requirements, effective global solutions on noise, focus on reduction on carbon emissions and an unobtrusive yet effective security system are the hallmarks of a world class airport – ‘Smart Airport.’
My Take
The airport experience can become a place where travellers can relax before embarking on a long flight, heading to work conferences, or making regular commutes – and when they return and wind down from their journey. Changi International Airport ensures all this and more. At the Jewel, Changi Airport – an exciting, sprawling space that lives up to the reputation of being the best airport in the world with its glass-enclosed geodesic dome that emits a lot of cheerful light, a vast central atrium with a profusion of lush, green tropical plants, and the world’s highest indoor waterfall which magically turns colours in the night, is a testimony of an airport where business and pleasure meet at their best. The Jewel, as an adjunct facility is a major commercial non-aeronautical revenue earner by itself and yet totally unobtrusive to the main flow and processing of the passengers – a hallmark of an excellent airport.
Mr. Inderjit Singh has been an Aviation Advisor in the development & management of Air- Transport Infrastructure in several global locations worldwide, some under the aegis of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) – a specialized agency in the UN system of organizations. He is the International Correspondent for the World AirNews, South Africa and Airports International, UK – ranked world’s #1 aviation magazine in circulation and readership.
